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The Virginia Tech Shootings: A Case for Redundant Communications

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<b>By Fred Burton</b>
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

Campus police at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., on April 17 identified the perpetrator of the shooting rampage on campus a day earlier as South Korean English student Cho Seung Hui. Thirty-three people died as a result of the attack and several others were injured, some seriously.

The shooting began about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of co-ed dormitory West Ambler Johnston Hall. According to reports, Cho shot and killed his girlfriend and then a resident assistant who responded to the sound of the shots. Police were investigating those shootings when Cho stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building some half a mile away, and opened fire on faculty and students, killing another 30 people. The rampage ended when Cho killed himself.

Authorities have not released many of the details of the attack, though several important points can be ascertained from the known facts. Given the history of school and university shootings in the United States, the certainty that others will occur and the warning from the FBI about a possible <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=260207">Beslan-style </a> militant attack, the lessons from the Virginia Tech attack can be instructive - perhaps even lifesaving.

<b>Methodical Planning</b>

First, the shooting was planned in advance and methodically executed. This conclusion is supported by the fact that Cho carried two pistols and loads of ammunition, that he went directly to another building for the second phase of the attack and that he used chains to secure the main doors to Norris Hall before opening fire. The chains served to keep targets inside the building and to impede the entry of responding law enforcement officers. Cho had studied the building and planned accordingly.

Although criticism has begun over the level of security at Norris Hall, and Virginia Tech in general, attacks of this nature cannot be prevented by security devices and programs. Educational institutions, especially sprawling universities, are soft targets that cannot be hermetically sealed like a federal penitentiary. As such, prison-style security measures would be not only impractical, stifling and prohibitively expensive, but also ultimately ineffective — because even tight security cannot stop a determined, suicidal attacker.

On campuses, even the best physical security measures — closed-circuit television coverage, metal detectors, identification badges, locks and so forth — have finite utility. These measures serve a valuable purpose, but they cannot stand alone. For one thing, the technology cannot evaluate and react. Also, it can be observed, learned and even fooled. Moreover, because some systems frequently produce false alarms, warnings in real danger situations can be brushed aside. Given these shortcomings, it is quite possible for anyone planning an act of violence to map out, quantify and then defeat or bypass physical security devices. In fact, security devices can be relied on too much, resulting in a <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=271340">false sense of security</a>.

History shows us that even adding guards into the mix is not enough to prevent attacks. The March 2005 <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=246560">shooting</a> in Red Lake, Minn., demonstrates that even strict access-control measures, such as ID badges, metal detectors and security guards, can be circumvented -or neutralized. In Red Lake, the security guard was the first person killed.

<b>Indicators of Planning</b>

In past cases, school shooters often have given prior warnings as to their intentions. In other words, they did not just "snap" and go on a killing spree. In most cases, their attacks were methodically planned, often over a long period of time. Jeff Weise, the teenage student arrested for the Minnesota shootings, allegedly spent more than a year planning his attack, including conducting walk-through rehearsals and noting the location of security cameras. Weise also had help from a friend, who eventually pleaded guilty to transmitting threatening messages via the Internet.

As in <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=248076">workplace attacks</a>, one of the biggest contributing factors to school shootings is the failure to identify the warning signs or to take the signs (even obvious ones) seriously. Because of this, following the April 1999 Columbine shooting, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Secret Service conducted an extensive study of school shootings and developed educational materials that have helped raise the awareness of such warning signs.

The warning signs include sudden changes in a person&#39;s behavior, his or her decreased productivity, withdrawal from friends or the sudden display of negative traits, such as irritation, poor hygiene or snapping at or abusing fellow students. Perhaps the most indicative signs that serious trouble is looming are talk about suicide and/or the expression of actual or veiled threats. In most previous cases, especially those involving detailed planning, the factors leading to the violent outburst have built up over a long time. These factors have included failed romantic relationships, stress from family relationships, failing grades or perceived injustice at the hands of peers or teachers. As was highlighted in the Columbine case, quite often the shooter fantasizes about committing the attack for some time and even shares those fantasies with a friend or via an online form such as a blog or Web site.

Due to the government&#39;s educational efforts, several attacks have been foiled by people who have recognized and reported the warning signs to authorities. Of course in some cases, the signs have been as blatant as students sharing their plans for an attack in advance with their friends or warning other students not to go to school on a certain day.

Although the details of the events leading up to the Virginia Tech shooting are not yet clear, Cho apparently spent quite some time planning his attack, which strongly suggests he gave some indication of his intent that was not recognized or that he even made threats that went unheeded. There are now unconfirmed reports that Cho set at least one fire on campus, that he had stalked a student, that he had been sent for counseling and that he was taking an antidepressant. At least some of these indicators likely are true, and we anticipate that others will surface as the investigation into the attack progress.

<b>Warning Systems</b>

Some of the most critical comments about the Virginia Tech administration have centered on the long delay in notifying the faculty and student body that a shooter was at large, that the eventual warning was not transmitted to all and that it was confusing to those who did receive it.

One source at Virginia Tech said many people received no warning and that communication of the event was "very much a case of who had cell phone or wireless devices before the system was overloaded and crashed." In some university buildings, such as the library, the public address system is not used to convey emergency instructions. The source said the result was that large clusters of students "seemed to be caught between orders to go inside and some sort of building evacuation instructions," and thus remained outside. This confusion was cleared up once police began using the PA systems on their vehicles to convey clear instructions to the students.

So perhaps one of the biggest lessons from this attack will be the need for large institutions to have redundant and overlapping notification systems that will convey clear and consistent instructions. Such systems could incorporate e-mail notification, text messages and public address systems. Of course any such system would have to be routinely tested and refined to become more effective.

<b>Contingency Planning</b>

Historically, incidents of school shootings tend to spawn similar attacks so that three or four major incidents occur within a few weeks of one another. Given that precedent, the FBI&#39;s current concerns over a mass attack against a school, and the April 20 anniversary of the Columbine attack (which also is Adolf Hitler&#39;s birthday), it would be prudent for university security directors, local school boards, parents and students to review or establish emergency plans.

Like 9/11, the massive 2003 <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=221262">U.S. power outage</a> and <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=254863">Hurricane Katrina</a>, the confusion evidenced in Blacksburg highlights the need for <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=248481">contingency plans</a> in the event of an accident, natural disaster or attack by criminals or militants.

Such plans are important not only for corporations and schools, but also for families and individuals. Furthermore, there should be a plan for each regular location — home, work and school — that outlines what each person will do and where they will go should they be forced to evacuate. This means establishing meeting points for family members who might be split up — and backup points in case the first one also is affected by the disaster.

When such incidents occur, the ensuing chaos often results in difficulty communicating, as cell phone and regular phone circuits become overwhelmed with traffic. The lack of ability to communicate with loved ones can greatly enhance the panic felt during a crisis. Perhaps the most value derived from having a personal and family contingency plan is a reduction in the amount of stress that results from not being able to immediately contact a loved one. Knowing that everyone is following the plan — and that contact eventually will be established — frees each person to concentrate on the more pressing issue of evacuation.

Because of this, communication is an important part of any such plan, and redundant forms of communication must be established in advance. Past crises such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have shown that even if cell phone and regular phone circuits are jammed, text messages and e-mail frequently will continue to work. This means that every member of the family, including technophobes, must learn to use text messaging and e-mail. While no emergency plan can account for every eventuality, such plans do provide a framework from which to work, even during times of panic.

The open nature of schools and universities makes preventing attacks on campuses extremely difficult — though a student body, faculty and staff that know the warning signs can be a vital line of defense. Once an attack begins, proper communications and well-designed contingency plans can minimize the casualty count.

<b>Distribution and Reprints</b>

This report may be distributed or republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/">www.stratfor.com</a>.

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Virginia Tech: The Challenge of Instant Communication in a Crisis

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<p>Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I have been percolating some ideas about how to better integrate technology into a crisis plan I am currently working on. My work with the Red Cross over the years has sharpened my senses and I do have some idea of how to successfully communicate during a crisis. However, this week&#39;s events at Virginia Tech have given me some further ideas.

I don&#39;t want to start getting clinical about this before I say that I am deeply moved by the tragedy this week. Having lived in Virginia for many years I feel close to the tragedy, and moreover, because we have a dear friend who is a professor in the engineering department in V-Tech. I heard from him Tuesday night and am grateful that both he and his freshman daughter are okay.

That expressed, there are many lessons to start learning, especially as we prepare for the unexpected and communicating to large groups in crisis.

There was a great <a href="http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/0-0&fp=462693b442b2782f&ei=IHMmRqKHJMCGswHGq9S0Cw&url=http%3A//online.wsj.com/article/SB117685626072073360.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj&cid=1115495034">story in the Wall Street Journal today</a> that (registration req.) discussed the use of disseminating information via texting in a crisis. I have pulled some of the information about services from that article.

My main takeaway from this event is the need for redundancy of communication. There need to be both high and low tech layers of communication to be most effective. First and foremost, an organization has to have a strategy to get in touch with all of the stakeholders and employees that need to be reached. A good start is a list of employee cell phones and home phone numbers that are ready to use in an emergency, as well as emergency contacts.

Having a <a href="http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2006/06/crisis-communication-bird-flu-and.html">crisis communication plan</a> is essential to get the most out of our communications, but here is an incomplete checklist of tactics to consider:

<b>High Tech Strategies</b></p>
<p><ul><li>Have a service set up to send instant text messaging (SMS), one such service is run by <a href="http://www.omnilert.com/notification_products.html#amerilert">Omnilert </a>and costs about $9,000 per year, another for schools is and opt in service run by <a href="http://www.mobilecampus.com/">Mobile Campus</a></li><li>Set up redundancy in the servers to handle any increased load</li><li>Set up and Instant Communication Platform, something my friend <a href="http://ike.pigott.name/occam/">Ike Pigott </a>calls the Situation Room. Running this on a blog platform is a really handy way to control the speed of getting the message out.</li><li>Immediate updates on the web page that could be pulled from a blog platform</li><li>E-mail blasts</li><li>Harness the culture of Facebook and MySpace and maintain profiles there for instant communication, especially in the aftermath of events</li><li>Make the online information you share easily viral so that it can be passed on via blogs and other social media without diluting the message</li><li>Use YouTube to distribute video responses to a wider audience</li></ul></p><p>which includes advertisements

<b>High Touch and Lower Tech</b></p>
<p><ul><li>Equip employees across the areas that might be affected in a Paul Revere-like system of notifications. Distribute pagers and give training for instant response in disseminating messages across wide geographic or spread out operations.</li><li>Consider a service to deliver mass phonecalls to cell and home numbers</li><li>Employ an audio warning system, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/18/scitech/pcanswer/main2697647.shtml">like the siren system installed at UT Austin</a> after the shootings there in 1966, or better yet, one with audio voice warnings, as by <a href="http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/collegiatetimes/footage.mov">this video</a> it seems they used at V-Tech</li><li>Have good relationships with bloggers and mainstream media to get messages out fast</li></ul></p><p>This is just a start of the list and it will be governed by the needs of an organization and budget. However, these kind of "incidents" could happen anywhere and we need to be prepared to meet the challenges. Do you have anything to add to the list?

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Re-Imaging Violence

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<p><b>Recorded</b> Thursday, April 19 (24 MB MP3)</p>
<p>We&#39;ve decided to scrap <a href="http://www.radioopensource.org/race-class-and-language/">tonight&#39;s planned show</a> (about language post-Imus) in favor of a show about the visual reverberations of the Virginia Tech shooting. Our central prod came from the trusty <a href="http://www.radioopensource.org/pitch-a-show-3107/#comment-51189">barthjg</a>, who wrote:</p>
<blockquote>I&#39;ll pitch a show about Instant Symbols and Icons, based on the Virgina Tech killings.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The image of Cho Seung-Hui brazenly holding two handguns, arms outstretched will soon reach iconic status, to be mashed up and shared in all sorts of ways-just like the Abu gharib photos and Che&#39; and everything else that has appeared on t-shirts and ads. How many You Tube videos created in the wake of the shootings? music tributes. every incident enters the mosh pit of creative repurposing.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Who is going to write the music, the movie...track every 6 months how pieces of this tragedy filter thru global culture.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Watch someone stage the two crazy plays this guy wrote for the drama class he is in. (you can find them on aol.com...i read them last night)</blockquote>
<blockquote>barthjg, in a <a href="http://www.radioopensource.org/pitch-a-show-3107/#comment-51189">show suggestion</a> to <i>Open Source</i>, April 19, 2007</blockquote>
<p>We&#39;re following his lead, and asking: Is there anything to learn about the way we use new technologies in this first mass-murder made, as it were, for YouTube? Are mashups and tributes a form of digital catharsis, a sort of artistic safety valve? Is there a cross-over point where they become pure exploitation, or worse?</p>
<p>And what, exactly, is new here? Besides the zeros and the ones, and the ease of dissemination and reconfiguration, is there a difference between a 19th-century suicide note and a 21st-century QuickTime movie?</p>
<blockquote><b>Siva Vaidhyanathan</b><br />
Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication, NYU<br />
Blogger, <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/">SABEROCRACY.NET</a></blockquote>
<blockquote><b>Keith Jenkins</b><br />
Picture Editor, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/">The Washington Post</a><br />
Flickr blogger, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/keithwj/">Burnt Pixel</a><br />
Blogger, <a href="http://keithwj.typepad.com/">Good Reputation Sleeping</a><br />
Founder of the <i>Post&#39;s</i> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/dcmetro/discuss/31143/">Blog City</a> feature</blockquote>
<blockquote><b>James Der Derian</b>
Director of the <a href="http://www.watsoninstitute.org/program_detail.cfm?id=4">Global Security and Global Media Project</a> at <a href="http://www.watsoninstitute.org/"> The Watson Institute for International Studies</a> at Brown University<br />
Author of <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio?PID=29928&cgi=product&isbn=0813397944">Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network</a></blockquote>
<p><b>Extra Credit Reading</b></p>
<blockquote>Excerpts from the original footage sent by Cho Seung-Hui to NBC on the day of the shootings (via YouTube): <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbDl5_qAj04">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbDl5_qAj04</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>anditgoeslike, <a href="http://anditgoeslike.livejournal.com/201397.html">2007-4-19</a>, <i>anditgoeslike&#39;s LiveJournal</i>: "These pictures of Cho failed to evoke the kind of emotional reaction that a real villain should. I&#39;m sure it would be different if he were actually holding that gun to my head and not to a digital camera with the self-timer innocuously ticking away. I don&#39;t know, though. I just imagined him going in front of the mirror and experimenting with various outfits and poses."</blockquote>
<blockquote>ntcoolfool, <a href="http://ntcoolfool.livejournal.com/102486.html">Update</a>, <i>Bryce&#39;s Journal</i>, April 16, 2007: "I cannot decide if I should join and get the most up to date information or not. I think when I do, it will then hit me. I must avoid it at all costs. The list still awaits- and several friends have remained silent on facebook updates. Could it be them?"</blockquote>
<blockquote>Scottish Right, <a href="http://scottishright.squarespace.com/journal/2007/4/19/old-media-tries-to-tarnish-new-media-with-virginia-tech-killer-video.html">Old Media Tries To Tarnish New Media With Virginia Tech Massacre</a>, <i>Scottish Right</i>, April 19, 2007: "A madman campus killer making a video and shipping it to a media outlet has absolutely nothing to do with "citizen journalism" or "new media." A sicko video made with a camcorder and sent to NBC is hardly any different than an elaborate suicide note being written and mailed to a media outlet."</blockquote>
<blockquote>Momus, <a href="http://imomus.livejournal.com/278850.html">The problem lays a floral wreath at the grave of the problem</a>, <i>Click Opera</i>, April 17, 2007: "There, visually represented, is the same horror we heard on the cell phone video footage students recorded. The grim exterior of the building, and that seemingly endless banging. Horror beyond all the platitudes. Horror intimately tied to the braying donkey of the Absurd, the pragmatic, the routine, the logistical — what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil."</blockquote>
<blockquote>nikolrb, in a <a href="http://www.radioopensource.org/re-imaging-violence/#comment-51211">comment</a> on <i>Open Source</i>, April 19, 2007: "It seems part of this discussion is not about if the images are more prevalent, I don&#39;t think they are especially, but how quickly we are digesting and regurgitating and socially processing them. Think of all the movies, plays, songs, etc. made referring to Jeffrey Dahmer, the Zodiac Killer, Son of Sam killings, Jack the Ripper, etc. The entertainment/news cycle seems to be converging (in more arenas than just this.)"</blockquote>
<blockquote>Dan Gilmor, <a href="http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/04/17/virginia-tech-how-media-are-evolving/">Virginia Tech: How Media Are Evolving</a>, <i>Center for Citizen Media Blog</i>, April 17, 2007: "Once again, horror has given us a glimpse of our media future: simultaneously conversational and distributed, mass and personal."</blockquote>
<blockquote>Sky News, <a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1261563,00.html">Copycat: Killer Re-Enacted Violent Film</a>, <i>Sky News</i>, April 19, 2007: "Officers believe he repeatedly watched Oldboy as part of his preparation for the killing spree."</blockquote>
<p>--</p>
<p>Archived with permission of the producers.</p>
<p>Original Source: <a href="http://www.radioopensource.org/re-imaging-violence/">http://www.radioopensource.org/re-imaging-violence/</a></p>

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Posted Friday, April 20, 2007 by Eric Schnell on The Medium is the Message (Blog)

As the Virginia Tech tragedy unfolded students used a familiar the technology to keep connected with the events, friends, and families: Facebook.

Using laptops and wireless connections, students created new Facebook groups on the fly as the day unfolded. Thousands of people joined a group called "I&#39;m ok at VT," which was used by students to announce that they were safe, ask for details about friends unaccounted for, and to report the names of victims. Other groups such as "VT Unite" were also created and thousands of people world wide not associated with VT joined them.

The use of this social networking site to publish and discover information and report personal experiences was a natural since it is what today&#39;s students use to gather online. Facebook provided immediate and quickly-updated information.

As I watched the quality of the footage released much it was obviously generated by camera phones. In my <a href="http://ericschnell.blogspot.com/2007/01/technology-trends-for-2007.html">Technology Trends for 2007</a> post I described the emergence of a concept called <a href="http://ericschnell.blogspot.com/2006/11/rock-concert-20-mobcasting.html">Mobcasting</a>, a phenomenon where event observers capture events on their video phones and podcast the footage on a blog. I described how the the resulting aggregation of content will lead to live event coverage by bloggers that is more in depth than can be captured by mainstream media. This tragedy demonstrated of power and potential of this concept.

Unfortunately, there was dubious information also being created. There has already been media debate about the accuracy of the information that was contained on these sites. Of course, traditional media outlets have processes they use to vet information before it is released. While this verification of information takes time it is not flawless (Dan Rather, Jayson Blair). The trade off is that is one wants to have information faster it may not be as dependable or reliable.

Still, I think there&#39;s a great potential for the ability to connect individuals that are there on-the-ground during events as they unfold and using blogs, RSS feeds, and Facebook as tool for publishing their personal experiences. While some can argue the result may not be as accurate as mainstream media, the coverage is significantly more complete.